Monday, October 8, 2007  2:39 am 

20JFG News Bulletin

So we shall begin by apologising for the absolute slackness of the last couple of weeks, we have been caught in the spiderweb of reality (we don’t like it), and hence stayed away from these hallowed halls full of wistful ghosts and robotic insects, we have even neglected to feed the mutant carps which lurk in the murky channels under our manor, WTF.

Nevertheless, our psychic tendrils still flex, and we have accumulated a backlog of tunes to write about, sufficient we hope, for you to forgive us our neglect, the theme today is one of synth love and sex, cosmic wonder and perhaps horror at the mystery that lies hidden beneath the tapestry of stars we behold when we stare into the starry sky.

So without further ado, and as the Devil’s Rejects would say, let’s get on with it.

The corpses of two teenagers were found last night in the lawns of Carpenter Plaza, their clothes were torn to pieces and their flesh had been pierced by a multitude of small yet grievous wounds such as those which might have been caused by the attack of a pack of feral children. Their eyes had been pecked out, bringing to mind memories of certain mysterious event that took place in the North Californian coast in 1963. After an arduous investigation, the police was able to reconstruct the events of that night, but the mysterious culprit, or more likely, culprits of the grisly murder, remain unidentified. It would seem that after the ingestion of several beers in the lawns, the two teenagers, whose names remain undisclosed, started harassing Crazy Mary, a supposed witch who has taken it upon herself to feed the flock of pigeons populating the area, and stole the carrier bag containing the bread crumbs she uses for such purpose. After these shenanigans they met with some friends in the centre of town, started a fight with a group of foreign students and escaped on the arrival of the constabulary. This is as far as confirmed fact go, the two teenagers headed towards the bus stop and that’s, as they say, ‘all she wrote’. Enquiries amongst the jolly group of tramps that sleep in the lawn’s bushes have raised certain curious hypotheses regarding the nature of the events that unfolded that night. According to them, ‘those kids shouldn’t have messed with Crazy Mary, the pigeons take care of her’. Leads regarding a possible association between a confederation of winged critters and the lady to commit murder have been, so far, ignored by the police.

Nimoy- Orca Reunion

Nimoy’s self/titled 12 is the latest release from bad-ass dark electroid La Hague zomborgs Bunker Records. In this black slab of vinyl which comes typically accompanied by a photocopy of a penguin our favourite Vulcanian shows a sick predilection for skeletal, atmospheric deadhead electro, which manages to, simultaneously, put the fear of cosmos in your soul and make you shake your scrawny ass through an elegant astrogration algorithm written in a dead language, it’s not that, ‘in space, no one can hear you scream’, it’s that, ‘in space, there are things that can hear you scream, and they are fucking enjoying it’.

Buy buy buy.

Last night, thousands of children between the ages of 4 and 9 escaped from their houses all across Europe and paraded through the moon-lit streets carrying banners and figures they had themselves created with cardboard and papier mache subreptitiously smuggled from schools and kindergarten. The text in the banners was written in a strange language which experts have been, so far, at a loss to identify. Although the capacity with which small children from all over the continent were able to co-ordinate their activities has raised concerns regarding the under-age use of social networking sites and the such, preliminary interviews with participants in these parades seem to point towards an altogether more frightful direction. According to these children, their nocturnal activities were undertaken in response to continuous and vivid dreams featuring ‘men from space’ who convinced them to come out in the streets and celebrate their imminent arrival through impromptu public celebrations, apparently the figures the children were carrying, amorphous collections of balloons and cones together with gaffer tape represent the physical appearance of these mysterious broadcasters from a dreamworld which seems to have access points outside our planet.

Roland Sebastian Faber- Hommage II

In his ‘Hommage and die Jugend Europas’, released by Aube Records, Roland Sebastian Faber creates a breathtakingly beautiful motorik disco soundtrack for the interstellar highway which brings to mind Jean Michel Jarre and spaced out Vangelis in the best of ways, if the ever so patient and enlightened Martians portrayed in Stranger in a Strange Land made music, it would undoubtedly sound like this.

An spokesman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technolology has declared that a small number of robotic mice escaped from the Cognitive Science laboratories three weeks ago. These small creatures, originally developed with funding from the U.S. Army, and to be used for reconnaisance and ‘neutralisation’ purposes in conflict zones were apparently convinced to escape from their cages by an Artificial Intelligence scientist with countercultural political leanings who is currently being interrogated by the CIA. The mice have demonstrated an uncanny skill at modifying other machines, hooking them up to create semi-sentient servants and tools in what might be the first demonstration of the singularity principle. These machines have been used to repel at least two infiltration attempts carried out by the Navy Seals in the wooden areas in the north of the state where the mice have apparently decided to establish their residence. An anonymous source at the MIT told reporters, off the record, that scientists in the CSL are working hard on the development of a squad of robotic cats to be sent with the mission of capturing the fugitive mice.

Greg Hawkes- Bee System

Synth wizard and Cars Member Greg Hawkes released Niagara Falls, from which ‘Bee System’ is taken, in 1982. We’d be hard pressed to find a better example of uplifting optimistic electro-pop drawing a quirky pyramid between Kraftwerk, Devo and Bruce Haack inside which all the robots can do the happy ‘Ahoy, that carburetor oil was so yummy mr. engineer!’ dance. As you would expect it doesn’t get any better than this.

A ghost roams New York City, you can see it reflected in the eyes of mysterious strangers, in the specks of light projected by street lamps far up, its silhouette advancing through a mist which extends its wistful fingers only to touch the void, the shadow slips away like a dream upon awakening and disappears down an alleyway, you can hear its voice while rolling in your bed sleepless, like the radio of a mysterious neighbour playing in the distance, a channel between stations bringing forth the spectral vibrations of our Lady of the Night.

Chromatics-Mask

Chromatics keep advancing, in Night Drive, towards the moment of shining radiance when the pulse of their music shall become night itself and all that lies therein, a satin dress slowly revealing skin stopping short of a scar you know is there, their humming synths and pristine melodies advance slow and merciless like love itself, or waves of black water washing over a beautiful corpse into the harbour, it’s all part of a psychosexual thriller that could easily become your life, a tempting alternative to the mediocrity that surrounds us.

Chromatics are building us a beautiful palace, the doors slide open slowly, we step inside.

labels >> greg hawkes, nimoy, roland sebastian faber, spells, synth wizardry